Mr.
Ruffley: We are listening to the hon. Lady’s
contribution with interest but also a bit of alarm. I am very surprised
to hear that there is not more strategic thinking to identify
conditions that might be prevalent in her area and to work out what
form of training package might fit the needs. I am staggered and
disappointed to hear about the various public bodies, whose job is to
think strategically and answer the hon. Lady’s exact questions.
Will she say a bit more about the
issue?
Natascha
Engel: I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
I deliberately painted a rather bleak picture to highlight the problem.
We can make national legislation and produce a good national
legislative framework for the system to exist in, but only local
delivery matters. Lots of different public, private and voluntary
organisations are doing some of that
work. 3.15
pm The city
strategy brings all of that together in a coherent manner, which may
not be true in rural areas, and I am worried about the difference
between the rural and the more urban. We have organisations that do a
wonderful job in identifying skills needs, and we have a rather large
employment-creating project on our doorstep, which is fantastically
exciting, but even though we are thinking strategically and considering
future skills needs, that is not strategic enough. We are doing all
that against the backdrop of the accession eight countries, which
presents one of the biggest problems that we face in rural areas. I
would welcome the Minister’s comments on all of those
points.
Mr.
Boswell: I am pleased to follow the hon. Lady, who made
some interesting and helpful contributions, the first of which was to
bring a degree of enthusiasm to a subject that deserves more than
cynicism. We need to realise that the Bill is about real people whom we
are trying to help. That is not an unworthy aim for
politicians. It is sometimes unnecessary to claim that, but it is still
important to feel it.
The hon. Lady stood up for
rural areas. She will not be surprised if I respond to her on that. I
know something of the coalfield communities, and I think that she made
the point, by implication, that not all rural areas are affluent, and
that they have difficulties. I was recently reading the report of the
Government’s new rural advocate, Dr. Stuart Burgess, which says
that there are problems with the ability to access a proper range of
services, with transport, and with other issues we have discussed. I
agree that, however well things are done at the centre, it sometimes
seems as though the rural areas are somewhat in default. Will the
Minister spend a moment of the Committee’s time talking about
his approach to the projection of the system into rural
areas? The hon. Lady
also talked about skills. I could join her in doing that and talk
enthusiastically for the rest of the day on that subject, which is
central to the debate. We have debated medical and quasi-medical
conditions, but the issue is wider than that. All the work that I have
seen, which includes the work of the National Institute of Adult
Continuing Education, shows that participation in education, in the
widest sense of the word—not necessarily narrowly
vocational-specific activities, but activities from literacy to leisure
and pastimes—is good in itself and good for people’s
health. It involves interaction and affects confidence. The Minister
will appreciate this, but we need to keep saying it: it is important
that his Department and the Department for Education and Skills and
others work together on these matters.
My hon. Friend the Member for
Bury St. Edmunds rightly asks, is not all that happening? In a sense,
formally it is, but the hon. Lady is right to put up her hand and say,
“This really does matter in rural areas, and we have to be
involved in it,” particularly where there are patterns of
morbidity, distance and exclusion from the labour market, which there
will be in some areas. I can find a few of my own that are not too
clever. The hon.
Lady’s final point, about volunteering, is the one she made
best. That is because of the enthusiasm with which she expressed her
remarks. She talked about Derbyshire Dave, who wanted to get on with
things and was prepared to do everything, but somehow the services did
not come along. The important point is that he was fired up to do
something. It occurs to me that the whole clause is about the negative,
such as regulations and the conditions under which sanctions can be
applied. Most of the debate has been not about the negative, but about
helping people. I hope that it will stay that way.
I return to something that we
have debated before, and make the only other point that I want to make
on this clause. Many enthusiastic people who are already on incapacity
benefit would like to work if the opportunity arose. That is where we
start. Others—we have discussed them at some length during our
debate on this clause—might not want to join the party and might
ultimately come at least within the ambit of the idea of
sanctions.
It seems important that we
should emphasise the positive, not the negative, and one of the most
important things is the individual’s motivation. Sadly, some
people within the support allowance category will find it difficult to
return to the labour market, and by definition no one in that category
will find it easy. On the other hand, if they are willing volunteers
they should be actively encouraged. Other people within the employment
allowance category will be less active and less keen, and if resources
are not unlimited—we will not reopen that issue—it may be
important for Jobcentre Plus or the private contractors to go out to
look for people who actively want to participate. A simple rubric that
I will leave with the Committee is that it might be better, rather than
having a conscript on the employment allowance, to have a willing
volunteer on the support allowance.
Danny
Alexander: I want to follow the comments made by the hon.
Members for North-East Derbyshire and for Daventry, and to underscore
for the Minister the importance of delivering such services and
supporting people when they undertake work-related activity in rural
areas. I represent some 5,000 square miles of the highlands and isles
of Scotland, where the distances and—less so, these
days—weather conditions, such as severe cold weather, make the
strategic co-ordination of such activities incredibly difficult. I
understand the point that the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire
made. In some ways, it is even stronger if one is talking about a few
people up a mountain track up the Cairngorm mountains or Monadhliaths
who, in some circumstances and because of a range of disadvantages,
would be unable to take part in activities that are being promoted
through a city strategy or any other urban-centred strategy. It is
critical to reflect on the needs of people in sparsely populated rural
areas, as I am sure the Minister will agree.
I am delighted that the
Minister has come to Inverness to visit the “Unlock Your
Potential” project, a joint effort between the SHIRLIE project,
which is an extremely well-respected and successful voluntary
organisation that promotes supported employment, and Jobcentre Plus in
the highlands. Jobcentre Plus has shown commendable innovation in
coming up with the ideas around the scheme. It is trying to deliver the
sort of joined-up thinking in sparsely populated rural areas that the
hon. Lady referred to. I hope that the Minister will confirm that that
is part of the Government’s wider thinking for rural
areas.
Mr.
Murphy: I will try to respond briefly to the reasonable
points about skills and the wider debate that we have not as yet
touched on. I will be quick.
My hon. Friend the Member for
North-East Derbyshire mentioned the importance of training and skills.
To drive out poverty in a family, we need not only to get people into
work but to sustain them in work and to enhance their skills. There is
evidence that the most effective way to enhance skills is while someone
is in work rather while they are out of work. The hon. Member for
Daventry knows about these issues. I am not trying to belittle anyone
who is taking other routes and engaged in other activity, but
analytically work is the most effective place for a customer to be to
enhance their skills. My hon. Friend the Member for
North-East Derbyshire is right to say that Sandy Leitch is working on a
review at the Treasury’s behest. I had the opportunity to meet
him along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to discuss
his emerging thinking and to seek to influence some aspects of his
conclusions. I am happy to report that there is nothing that my hon.
Friend has said today that Sandy Leitch would not agree with—I
base that on my conversations with him. It is important to mention his
work, and of course he will come to his own conclusions in his own
time. We may wish to
reflect at another time on the role of skills coaches as well as
personal advisers. On rural poverty, I would be happy to visit
Inverness the next time that my family and I go to the excellent Conon
Bridge hotel, which is in that part of the world. I do not know whether
it was appropriate to say that, or to talk about its cheap weekend
breaks. Anyway, the next time I am there with my family, I
will—with my family’s indulgence, of course—take
the opportunity to visit the projects that the hon. Member for
Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey
mentioned. On rural
poverty and the rural dimension, there are all sorts of issues to do
with transport. People in rural areas, particularly young folk,
identify it as a key issue in respect of their connection to work and
the opportunity to get out of poverty or to advance their aspirations.
I was reminded of that again on a relatively recent visit to Jamie
Oliver’s restaurant Fifteen in Newquay. The trainees there
identified the importance of transport in a rural environment. It
enables them to get to their workplace and to maintain themselves in
work. The cities
strategy is important. It is about a consortium of people who have
shared aspirations and a determination to work together. I have already
mentioned Wales, which, to its credit, has stolen a march on the rest
of the United Kingdom. In the rest of the UK, the strategy will be
rolled out in the cities, but in Wales, as I have said, it will be
rolled out in the heads of the valleys and in Rhyl. I do not know all
the topography and terrain of that part of the world, but I do know
that those places are not as yet major cities. We will have an
opportunity to learn from the experiences, co-operative working and
innovations of the consortiums, particularly in Wales, and use that
knowledge in a further roll-out of the cities strategy. With those
remarks, I invite the Committee to agree that clause 12 stand part of
the Bill. Question
put and agreed to.
Clause 12 ordered to stand
part of the Bill.
Clause
13Action
plans in connection with work-focused
interviews
Danny
Alexander: I beg to move amendmentNo. 157, in
clause 13, page 12, line 1, after
‘plans’,
insert— ‘( ) requirements on
employers’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 38, in
clause 13, page 12, line 2, at
end insert— ‘(d) the role of
a person to whom an action plan document is provided in determining its
content; (e) the requirements
that must be met by any such person, or employees of such person
receiving authorisation under section 15(1) in assisting a person to
whom an action plan is
provided; (f) the right of
person to whom an action plan is provided to appeal against its
contents.’. No.
143, in
clause 13, page 12, line 6, at
end insert— ‘(3A)
Regulations under this section may make provision for action plans to
include requirements to be placed on the Secretary of State, or any
person authorised to carry out functions on behalf of the Secretary of
State under section
15.’.
Danny
Alexander: I will try to be relatively brief. All three
amendments relate to the action plans and raise concerns which I hope
the Minister will address about how the action planning process will
operate. Amendment No.
157 goes back to a debate that we had earlier, so I shall not dwell on
it too much. However, it is important to talk a bit more about the
requirements on employers. In a debate last week, the Minister said
that engagement with employers is essential because, in the main, the
Government do not create jobs. But he also implied that the Government
themselves should be doing more as an employer to engage with the sorts
of people we have been
discussing. Can the
Minister expand a wee bit on what role he thinks the Department for
Work and Pensions and other central Government Departments could have
as employers, and whether they will have a role in recruiting people
from incapacity benefit, or from employment and support allowance, as
it will be? Another
key question is how any employer engagement undertaken by the
Department or, indeed, by contractors on behalf of the
Department—delivering pathways to work, for example—will
relate to the action plans that will be drawn up for individuals. Is it
the Minister’s thinking that within the action plans reference
could be made to the role that employers will play? That is the
substance of the first amendment. The burden of one of the other
amendments is that the action plan is not just about the individual. It
is about what the personal adviser can do to help an individual and
what potential employers might do in the context of the individual
action
plan. 3.30
pm Amendment No.
38 is about safeguards in relation to the reconsideration of an action
plan. Subsection (4) provides that an action plan can be reconsidered
under certain circumstances to be specified in regulations. Will the
Minister assure us that an individual who is the subject of an action
plan will have the right to request a change to it, or to withdraw it
completely and to ask for a fresh one to be drawn up if circumstances
change? Amendment No.
143 is intended to probe the Government’s definition of the
“prescribed circumstances” in which a person will be
provided with an action plan document. With those brief words, I invite
the Minister to spell out his thinking.
Mr.
Hunt: I wish to speak to Amendment No. 157, which is on
requirements on employers. A concern that many people have about the
Bill is that there is not enough in it about how we will improve
communications with employers, who are an important part of the
equation. Both Ministers will be aware of statistics that show that
there is still a huge amount of discrimination by employers. Some 38
per cent. are not prepared to take on anybody with any disability,
and63 per cent. are not prepared to take on someone with a
background of mental illness. It is important to involve employers in
the process, and the amendment suggests that requirements on employers
should be part of the action plan.
We have had Sheffield Dave and
Derbyshire Dave; may I mention Tunbridge Wells Tim? I have changed his
name, because I do not want to put his real name on the record. He
suffered an acquired brain injury when he was a teenager when he
stepped out of a bus and was mown down by a car that was moving very
fast alongside it. He was in a coma for many months. The result is that
he has a learning disability that will be with him for the rest of his
life. He was supported brilliantly by Kent Supported Employment, which
did a fantastic job of placing him in a job. He tried several times to
get a job, but he was open about his learning disability and was not
interviewed. Then he applied for a job at the Odeon cinema in Tunbridge
Wells andwas supported considerably by Kent Supported
Employment. He did not mention his learning disability, but as soon as
he was invited for an interview Kent Supported Employment contacted the
Odeon and explained the situation. The Odeon staff were very willing to
see him and he is now doing a brilliant job in that cinema.
When I went to the cinema and
spoke to people about it, I asked the staff about the challenges
involved. They mentioned the role of the personal advisers who help
disabled people to get into employment. They said that it is crucial,
and they gave an example. Tim was serving ice cream and some of it
dropped on the counter. He started to eat the ice cream that had been
dropped. Had they not known about his disability, that would have been
a sackable offence. He would probably not still be working there. The
excellent relationship that the cinema had developed with the advisers
meant that they were able to deal with the situation. As a result, his
prospects there are going from strength to strength. That is a good
example of why involvement with employers, including, as the Minister
rightly said, the Government’s involvement, is incredibly
important. I turn to
the comments made by the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire. There
are some brilliant employers—parts of BT, Asda and Royal
Mail—that do an excellent job. However, they say that they have
been driven to do so by labour market shortages. It made them consider
tapping into another labour market: people who have a limited
capability for work.
BT has found that
disabled employees save it a lot of money. It costs the company
£3,000 to £5,000 to employ someone, and if it keeps
someone for longer, it saves money. BT found that the retention rate
after one year for disabled employees was almost 10 per cent. higher
than for non-disabled employees.
There are good stories, but the
unemployment trajectory is firmly upward. The hon. Lady also raised the
issue of accession states.
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